


Stereotypical

by inkandpaperhowl, TheRavenintheMoon



Series: Long Lost Souls [20]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, Northshire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 12:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandpaperhowl/pseuds/inkandpaperhowl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRavenintheMoon/pseuds/TheRavenintheMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two mismatched girls find that, however stereotypical someone may seem on the surface, friendships can blossom as one learns the true character underneath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stereotypical 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I probably own nothing, except maybe my characters. I know that Blizzard, however, owns a small chunk of my soul...
> 
> Oryane belongs to inkandpaperhowl. She made a brief appearance in "Family" as well, and I hope to see more of her in future stories.

** Stereotypical 1**

            Oryane sighed and shifted her weight again. Syrius whined beside her. She rested a hand on his head and he thumped his tail on the ground cheerfully.

            “Wish I could be as easily cheered up,” she muttered angrily. The line shuffled forward by inches and stopped again. Oryane sighed in exasperation, rolling her eyes. She groaned as another argument broke out in front of her. Third one this morning. The mage standing behind her in line sniffed and turned her nose up at the arguing men, apparently determined to ignore them. Oryane rolled her eyes again and gritted her teeth. You got both kinds, waiting in line to volunteer: the baby-acting men and the high-and-mighty. Oryane could stand neither of them.

            The young huntress shared a look with her wolf and raised an eyebrow. Syrius stalked forward silently. He grabbed one of the arguing men by the arm at the same moment Oryane lashed out and grabbed the other by the ear. Both men howled and protested, but neither squirmed too much. Presumably, they wanted to keep their respective appendages.

            “Shut it,” Oryane said. “The more peaceful everyone is, the faster this line will move. The faster this line moves, the sooner I don’t have to listen to your irritating voices. The sooner I don’t have to listen to your irritating voices, the chance I don’t shoot you gets much higher. You don’t want to get shot, do you, boys?” The one who Syrius was latched on shook his head. The one whose ear she was twisting just whimpered. “Good,” she said, releasing him and signaling Syrius to let go. Her wolf padded back to her, grinning, his tongue lolling, as if to say, “Well, that relieved the boredom for a whole minute!”

            The mage behind her sniffed again, and she turned. The mage was about her height, with dark, wavy hair chopped off at the earlobes, and bright blue eyes that stared at the world around her with mild disdain. Oryane resisted the urge to roll her eyes yet again as she took in the other girl’s long, crisply pressed, freshly washed, blue robes. She didn’t have to glance at her own tattered, mud-stained, patched leather vest and breeches to know that they were more practical for the work they were volunteering for—hard work, fighting and putting out fires and killing things. Dirty work. Bloody work. The long, slender staff the mage carried slung across her back looked like it had spent far too much time standing in a corner of a library, and had never seen the violent end of an orc.

            “What?” she asked. “Tell me those buggers weren’t pissing you off, too.”

            “Please,” the mage snorted. “Restrain yourself from antagonizing fellow volunteers. You’re no better than those two.”  
            “Oh, please,” Oryane began exasperatedly, but the mage cut her off.

            “It’s not like every argument resorts to violence. We don’t always need the lone hunter to majestically swoop in and save us from ourselves.”  
            “I just thought I’d make everyone’s lives a little bit more peaceful, but fine, whatever. Next time I won’t bother.”

            “Of course you will. You can’t help yourself,” the mage sneered scornfully.

            Oryane sighed and resolutely turned her back, knowing there was no way in this world or the next she was going to get the last word in an argument with a bloody, high-minded mage. Particularly not one fresh out of the tower. _Light, give me the patience to deal with the privileged few_ , she muttered in her own head. _Them that walk on grass, not cobbles. Seriously, grass on city streets? How do they even keep it green? Bloody mages. I will never understand. Don’t want to understand._ She conveniently forgot about the great swathes of her youth spent in the grassy yard in front of the Command Center, focusing on her years in the alleys of Old Town. Such grumblings occupied her as the line shuffled forward and eventually deposited her in front of a table where a harried sergeant sat among of sea of paper, his fingers—and his nose—splattered with ink.

            “Name?” he asked brusquely.

            “Oryane Harrow,” she replied, just as succinctly.

            “Experience?”

            “Hunter. I can also mine, and I know enough first aid to get by, but I’m a fighter, sir, I—” he held up his hand.

            “Go see Marshall McBride, in front of the abbey. He’ll have some fighting work for you, I can guarantee it. Next!” he called, writing her name on a sheet of paper and waving her away.

            “Dindrane,” the mage said hurrying forward as Oryane moved aside, almost stepping on her own wolf’s tail in her haste to get out of the other girl’s way. She stumbled and stalked away, grumbling about mages under her breath.

            Around the front of the abbey, Marshall McBride sent her off almost immediately to kill as many worgs and orcs as she could, to help relieve the pressure on the line of guardsmen holding the invaders from the Burning Steppes back. She was sighting down her arrow at a particularly ugly worg when a burst of flame whacked it in the face and it ran past her to attack…the mage. Dindrane. The worg dropped dead after a few more frostfire bolts, and Dindrane smirked at Oryane. The huntress rolled her eyes and shot another worg before the mage could attack it, but the girl hit it with fire anyway.

            “Good teamwork,” another hunter called as she ran past, her white wolf stopping to say hello to Syrius. “Balin, we’re wanted in Goldshire,” she said, and the wolf trotted obediently after her. “Maybe we’ll see you two there.” She smiled at Oryane and Dindrane and headed out the wall across the mouth of the valley. Oryane and Dindrane stared at each other for a moment, and then the mage sniffed and turned away.

            “Teamwork,” she snorted derisively. Oryane rolled her eyes again and moved down the line of guardsmen to clear a different part of the valley—as far from the mage as possible.

            She didn’t see Dindrane the rest of the day; apparently they were working on opposite ends of whatever fights they found themselves in. Oryane had almost forgotten her encounter by late that afternoon, when she handed her borrowed fire extinguisher to the anguished proprietress of the burning vineyards, wiping her soot-stained hands on her soot-stained pants. She sighed and turned to Marshall McBride, who waved a piece of tattered paper at her.

            “Oryane, you’ll do,” he said. “They tell me the leader of this band of orcs is some brute called Kurtok the Slayer. He’s holed up across the river. If you can take him out, these bastards here attacking us might lose their enthusiasm.”

            “No problem,” Oryane said, signaling Syrius, who straightened out of the fighting crouch he had sunk into to growl at the nearest worg. He gave her a withering look, as if judging her for not letting him kill this mangy cur. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry, my friend.”

            They trotted around the abbey, wading the river above the bridge, closer to the burned out grove that most likely held the leader of the orcs. Footsteps made her pause, and she saw Dindrane running across the bridge to catch up with her.

            “What are you doing?” the mage asked.

            “I’m going to kill the orc commander. Kur-something.”

            “Kurtok, and no, you’re not, I am.” Oryane narrowed her eyes at the mage’s tone.

            “No reason we can’t do it together,” she said.

            “Please,” Dindrane said, tossing her hair out of her eyes, “I think I can handle him.”

            “I’m not saying you can’t, just that it would be easier with two of us. Three, if you count Syrius.” Dindrane looked distastefully down at the wolf, who was grinning up at her, wagging his tail.

            “I don’t,” she said, sniffing again. “He’ll just get in the way.” Oryane clenched her teeth. _Spirits, curse all those who scorn the intelligence of animals. Haunt their bones._

            “Well, the Marshall asked me to kill him, so I’m going to help you, whether you like it or not,” she said through gritted teeth. Dindrane shrugged, and set off across the charred patch of forest. Oryane wondered how much of the mage’s internal monologue was cursing about the soot that stained the bottom of her pristine robes. She almost giggled at the thought.

            The mismatched pair killed several scouts on their way to Kurtok, never targeting the same orc. They stood at the edge of the clearing, staring across it at the huge orc hulking near the back. Oryane raised her eyebrows and Syrius growled low and dangerous beside her.

            “Syrius can keep him occupied at the back of the clearing, and we can hit him from back here,” Oryane began outlining a plan of attack, but when she turned to Dindrane, magic already colored the mage’s hands. She cursed under her breath as the bolt exploded in Kurtok’s face and he roared. She got an arrow into a chink in his armor, but he just ripped it out and charged them. Dindrane smiled grimly, and blasted him with fire as Syrius leapt forward, jaws closing around the orc’s sword hand. Oryane stepped forward and steadied herself, and her second arrow punched through the enemy’s breastplate to bury itself in his chest. He stumbled, and Syrius used that momentum to drag him to his knees. Dindrane hit him with another frostfire bolt, followed quickly by a fire blast, and Oryane’s steady shot to the eye finished him. Syrius trotted back, tail wagging in victory. Oryane kicked the sword away from the corpse, but the orc was well and truly dead. She collected her arrows, and rifled through his pockets.

            “What are you doing?” Dindrane said, faint disgust tingeing her voice.

            “Looting,” Oryane said, smiling up at the mage. “Here.” She held out four coppers; the mage gave her a withering look. “He’s got six coppers and a hunk of cheese on him. Take the coppers. Your fair share.”

            “Three and three coppers would be fair,” Dindrane said.

            “I’m keeping the cheese, though,” Oryane said.

            “You’re going to eat cheese that has been sitting in that thing’s pocket?”

            “Food is food,” Oryane shrugged. “Do you want the money or no?” The mage delicately plucked three of the coppers from Oryane’s palm and pocketed them. Oryane shrugged again, taking her three coppers, grabbed the orc’s sword, and stood. Dindrane raised an eyebrow. “Proof,” the huntress said simply. They made their way back across the bridge silently. Oryane wondered if Dindrane was ignoring her or just had nothing to say.

            Marshall McBride’s face lit up when he saw them, and he accepted the orc’s weapon with thanks. He rewarded them and told them to head for Goldshire, the problems in Northshire—for now—contained.

            “Are you sure?” Oryane asked as Dindrane moved off toward the road. “It seems more can be done here.” McBride smiled.

            “The volunteers that show up in line tomorrow morning can handle it,” he said. “We’ll be fine here, thanks to you and your friend.”

            “We’re not friends,” Dindrane’s haughty voice floated over Oryane’s shoulder. “It was convenient to work together, nothing more.” Oryane clenched her jaw again, but managed not to say anything that would antagonize the already grumpy mage. McBride also contained his expression, and again urged them on to Goldshire, with profuse thanks. The two girls stopped on the side of the road, waiting for a patrol of Stormwind guards to ride past.

            “I’m not going to thank you,” Dindrane muttered. “I could have taken that orc alone.” Oryane sighed.

            “I never said you couldn’t. You know, I prefer to work alone as well. But sometimes, it’s _practical_ to team up.”

            “I didn’t need your help,” the mage snapped. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”

            “Obviously, or you wouldn’t have made it through the goblin assassins,” Oryane snapped back.

            “Yes. So there,” Dindrane said, lifting her chin so that it looked like she was looking down her delicate nose at Oryane, who grimaced in annoyance. “I don’t need you swooping in. I hope I never see you again.” She stalked off in a huff, quickly, as if she could no longer bear the sight of the huntress. Oryane wanted to shout something after her, but Syrius butted his head against her leg, stopping her.

            “Light, bless me with never seeing her again,” Oryane muttered. “I’d like to never work with anyone but you, Syrius. You’re reasonable, and you don’t talk back.” He woofed softly, proving her last statement to be false. She laughed and set off down the road, watching the mage’s hurrying figure disappear around a bend. _Good riddance_ , she thought. _Typical mage, so full of herself. Head stuck up so high in her lofty tower, looking down on us lowly ones, thinking she’s better than us. Thinking just because she casts magic, she doesn’t have to get her hands dirty like the rest of us. Too bloody proud to ask for help, needing to do everything the hard way. Stereotypical._ “A pox on people,” she muttered, Syrius growling in agreement. “Give me a wolf any day.” 


	2. Stereotypical 2

**_Stereotypical 2_ **

**_Oryane and Dindrane_ **

****

            _A curse on these pack rats—kobolds,_ Dindrane thought viciously. _A curse on every stupid teacher who thought I wouldn’t need anything more powerful than a frost nova to stun and blink to run away. And a veritable plague on all the sanctimonious hunters and their furballs who charge into every mess as if they were invincible. How stereotypical._ To be fair, the hunter probably hadn’t meant to charge headfirst into an entire rat’s nest of kobolds down in the depths of the Jasperlode Mine. Neither had Dindrane. What were a few kobolds, she had thought, especially since they might not even be there? Well…

            She should have known better, really. The first mine Marshall Dughan had sent her off to search had been swarming with the little rat men. She had crept in, flaming her way down the corridor until the cave had opened up suddenly into one large room, full of heavy mining equipment, abandoned picks, and more kobolds than any one person could safely handle. She had crept back much more softly than she had gone in, rehearsing the best way to report the bad news. Just like old times. _No, sir. I understand, sir. Yes, the table was on fire, sir. But look, the scrolls are all intact. They weren’t even singed a bit—of course, sir._ Dindrane shook her head. Maybe not exactly like the old days, then. Not to mention, that conversation had taken place only a week ago.

            A lot, it seemed, could change in a week. She wasn’t running messages in Stormwind’s mage district anymore. She’d been caught practicing spells in scrolls she’d merely been paid to carry, not to copy, or read, or use…they’d kicked her out to the real world. _Dindrane, we can’t help you anymore. You’ll have to make your own way, and find someone who can teach you what we never could…_

            Well, so far, she had met no one. No one except that hunter, back in Northshire. The one who just _had_ to break up fights and offer to help because it would make the world a little brighter, or because working together was _practical_. When had practical ever gotten her anywhere? Not that impractical had gotten her somewhere nice. No. It had gotten her backed up into a corner in a maze of a mine, surrounded by kobolds. And her frostfire bolts kept missing—they’d told her to work on accuracy, back in the tower, start slow, avoid pure fire, temper that, er, temper a bit—and just when she’d resigned herself to seeing nothing more of the world than the back of a dirty old mine, wondering what they would say, back at the tower, when they heard that she hadn’t lasted one single week, she’d heard a low growl and that helpful hunter had come around the corner in the wake of a large ball of fangs and fur.

            Dindrane felt obliged to help, if only because it looked better than collapsing against the wall in relief.

            When the last kobold fell with a thud, the hunter brushed a wisp of hair fallen loose from her short, rough ponytail back from her face and looked to see who else had braved the infested mine. She blinked wide-set blue eyes. “You again.”

            Dindrane resisted the urge to respond with, “Me again.” Instead, she just nodded at the dead kobolds. “Thanks for that.”

            The hunter grinned, apparently unable to let their last parting go unmentioned. “I thought you didn’t want to see me again. I thought you could take care of yourself.”

            Dindrane sniffed. “That was two days ago. _I_ thought I could take care of myself. And then I ended up in this infernal mine. So, _thank you_ , and let’s get out of here.” She hoped her tone would make it clear that she really didn’t need to hear ‘I told you so’ just at this moment. About to push past, she remembered her old teacher’s words again. _Find someone…_ She hesitated. “It was Oryane, wasn’t it?” she asked, wincing, hoping the hunter wouldn’t take offense at her apparent lack of memory.

            Oryane nodded. “Dindrane, right?”

            The mage didn’t immediately respond. “Wasn’t it?” Oryane asked, worried, then turned to see what Dindrane was looking at. “Holy—” Oryane spat, as a swarm of kobolds came around the corner. Dindrane, eyes narrowed, was probably wondering which was the weakest, and how best to attack. Oryane, instead, began to look for a way out. Seeing the platform above, she whistled to Syrius, and slung him up. He whined at being separated from Oryane, which snapped Dindrane’s attention around to them.

            “What are you doing?” she asked harshly. Oryane nodded at the platform.

            “Going up. Give me a hand?”

            Distractedly, one eye still on the kobolds that were forming up to attack, the mage bent, and offered the hunter a boost. Oryane caught hold of the rickety wood. It held, and she hauled herself over with a thump. “C’mon,” she called down. Dindrane gritted her teeth, and jumped. She caught hold of, not the offered hand, but one of the lower slats of the rail. With a grunt of effort, she pulled herself up, wedged her foot in a crevice, grabbed another rail, and slung herself over with a crash.

            “Seriously?” Oryane asked, clearly wondering what Dindrane’s problem was. The mage shrugged.

            “I used to climb bookcases in the library.” It was not the answer to the question Oryane had asked, but Dindrane wasn’t interested in explaining herself at the moment. Oryane must think she was useless by now, and she really wanted to prove the hunter wrong.

            With a little huff of annoyance, Oryane whistled to Syrius and headed towards a plank set into a gap in the wall.

            “What are you doing?” Dindrane asked.

            “These are the kobolds’ mines now. I think they can find us if we don’t move soon,” Oryane said, overly patient.

            Dindrane gritted her teeth. “I don’t think we should go that way. We came in over there…”

            “And there are loads of kobolds that way. We know this for a fact. The other mine looped around and came out at a different exit. Maybe there’s one in this mine too.”

            Syrius, who had been sniffing around the gap while the two girls argued, pulled away when Oryane stalked over. He seemed, tail thumping in surprise, to be agreeing with Dindrane. But Oryane had had enough of mages. Let Dindrane wade through a tunnel of kobolds. _She_ was going to find a way out. And she dropped through the gap feet first. Then she looked around, and screamed.

            Dindrane had turned her back on the hunter as soon as she had stomped off toward the gap in the wall. _She_ knew better than to go deeper into an already dangerous mine. Coaxing, careful, she had pulled one kobold geomancer, clearly a scout, around the corner, and was trading spell for spell, when Oryane screamed. Syrius, reluctant to follow his mistress down the foul-smelling (to his nose, anyway) hole, looked back pitifully at the mage, whining at the back of his throat imploringly.

            Dindrane stared at him as the kobold dropped. “What?” she asked. Then she poked her head around the corner. Four kobolds, clearly looking for the one she’d just killed, now blocked her way. “Oh, all right.” With a deep breath, she grabbed the wolf and threw him into the gap. Then she followed.

            And barely managed to contain her own scream. Oryane was rooted in place, sticky webs wrapped halfway up her thighs as the biggest spider Dindrane had ever seen tried to get to the hunter through a rain of arrows. Syrius immediately launched himself at the massive spider. Dindrane swallowed, and set off a fire blast not at the spider—Oryane flinched as the heat wrapped around her—but at the webs around the hunter’s legs. Then the two girls proceeded to destroy the spider together, arrows punching into the burns left behind by fire, frostfire searing wounds left by arrows already lodged in the weakening creature.

            When the last leg stopped twitching, the two girls laughed together, weakly. “I thought we were supposed to be scouting for kobolds,” Oryane said, catching her breath.

            Dindrane nodded. “Maybe it wasn’t the kobolds that drove the miners out of this one, though.”

            Oryane smiled. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

            Dindrane shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, well, how could I do anything else, with your puppy looking at me so pitifully? You would have been fine anyway.”

            “Oh, sure,” Oryane said. “I probably could have killed it, just me and Syrius here. But…” The hunter looked around at the walls, the phosphorescent green of damp, dark, but most importantly, deep parts of caves. “Where are we?”

            Dindrane shifted, thinking for a long moment. “This way,” she said, with certainty. She knew that miners tended to follow veins of ore, and she could see the remnants of one stretching away down the corridor.

            “Are you sure?” Oryane asked, apparently worried Dindrane was choosing a passage at random.

            “Well, look at it like this,” Dindrane said. “ _You_ led us to the spider queen. I can’t possibly manage to find something worse than that.”

            Oryane shook her head. “For a moment, there, I almost thought you were decent,” she muttered, more to Syrius than to Dindrane.

            The mage colored. Right. Almost. “I could leave you here,” she spat.

            Oryane held up her hand. “And when you get to that army of kobolds…” She let the sentence trail off suggestively.

            Dindrane gritted her teeth. “It might, in this case, be _practical,_ ” she spat the word, “to work together until we are free of the mine.”

            Oryane smiled. “Oh, well, in that case.” But the heat had left her words. Dindrane, leading the way, wondering why, realized that she really wouldn’t have left the hunter at the back of the cave alone. Maybe a week ago… Maybe Oryane had noticed.

            Steps a bit lighter, she happily flamed the spiders and the kobolds, watching the hunter as she fought, a perfectly balanced, cohesive team with her wolf. For one moment, Dindrane wondered what it would be like, to have a bond like that with a pet—to the point where they weren’t master and pet but a single unit… And then Syrius, panting happily, returned after chasing down a kobold to slobber enthusiastically all over Oryane’s hands. Dindrane winced. Never mind.

            Dindrane didn’t notice Oryane watching the mage’s casting, didn’t think that Oryane might be wondering, for just a moment, what it felt like to hold fire at the tips of her fingers and bid it to burn, hot enough to sear the enemy but not the self…and to see her wince as Dindrane, after a long fight, inspected a burn in her sleeve to see if she had scorched the skin beneath.

            When they finally emerged into the free air, shading their eyes against the slanting sun as they gazed towards the too-distant road, they rather awkwardly paused. “You’re really quite good at fire, aren’t you?” Oryane asked, glancing at Dindrane.

            The mage shrugged. “It’s not really my first choice.” Then, realizing it had been meant as a compliment, she tugged at the fastening of her cloak. “You and him,” she nodded to Syrius, “you’re quite the team.”

            Oryane nodded, unsure what exactly Dindrane meant by that.

            “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

            It took them a moment to realize that they’d said it at exactly the same time.

            Then, smiling, nodding in awkward acceptance of the fact that they’d just mutually saved each other’s lives, they began to take slightly different angles off through the woods towards the road. Oryane glanced back. “So…did you want to go get something to eat? Back in Goldshire?”

            Dindrane, surprising herself, did not say no.

            Companionably, the two girls and the wolf made a break for the road, giggling like lunatics as a sense of relief and a sense of absurdity washed over them. After all, didn’t heroes always laugh in the face of the horrors they’d seen? Why, it was very nearly stereotypical.


End file.
